21 Number of states with minimum wages higher than federal level. All other states default to the federal minimum wage.

BACKGROUND: After the state Senate advanced a bill last year to raise the Bay State’s minimum hourly wage to $11 by 2016, the House is now preparing to take up the matter. On the national level, Obama has called for a $10.10 federal minimum wage. The Congressional Budget Office recently released a report projecting that a $10.10 federal minimum wage could cause a net loss of 500,000 jobs nationally, while also bringing 900,000 families out of poverty and increasing incomes for more than 16 million workers.

QUOTES: “We’re not opposed to a minimum wage increase. We understand this is Massachusetts and it’s been pretty much an automatic political move every five years or so, but an increase of $3 just goes too far. It would not only make us the highest in the country, but would put us $2 higher than any of our border states.”

— Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts

“Raising the minimum wage would bring a little relief to the working poor, many of whom do jobs we could not live without and who, by the way, will recycle that money right back into the economy. To those who are reluctant to raise the minimum wage, I ask only that, before you resolve to oppose it, consider whether you could live on it.”